


A Good Turn Is Coming

by HarpiaHarpyja



Series: A Song of Trash and Fire [15]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Alternate take, Ben POV, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Hair Washing, Mitaka Is Thirsting For Rey, Sharing (Conditioner) Is Caring, reylo freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-25 08:01:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16193423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarpiaHarpyja/pseuds/HarpiaHarpyja
Summary: After a long day spent doing script readthroughs and slogging through an average holiday-season workday, Ben tries to do Rey a good turn by helping her wash her hair in the kitchen sink at First Order Coffee Co.  . . . before they head home to their utility-less apartment. As Rey's mind begins to wander to her current and past troubles, a quiet moment in the kitchen proves to be not as relaxing as Ben hoped it would be for her.(A companion ficlet for 'A Song of Trash and Fire: Ben and Rey Make a Porno' - A take of the events at the end of Chapter 4, from Ben's perspective.)





	A Good Turn Is Coming

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sunshineflying](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshineflying/gifts).



After Ben’s “missing thermometer” ruse proved such a success, he was afraid to hope that karma could possibly be on his side twice that night. But Mitaka proved shockingly easy to get rid of, considering that Rey had been sitting out in the cafe since early that afternoon. 

Ben still remembered the way Mitaka had talked to him about her earlier in the week—asking if he and she ever fucked around, commenting on how hot she was, stopping just short of asking Ben to land him a date with her. In fact, now that he knew about Mitaka’s interest in Rey, he had to wonder how it had not been painfully obvious to him before this week that his coworker definitely wanted to fuck his roommate. 

She spent enough time at First Order Coffee Co., usually when she arrived early to pick him up, or had an hour to stick around in the morning before she went off to the auto shop. It occurred to Ben now that Mitaka had probably been eyeing her up each and every time, maybe silently cursing Ben’s luck to have a beautiful live-in fuckbuddy. Except that totally wasn’t what was going on between him and Rey, and it never had been, and somehow that made Mitaka’s interest in her even more irritating.

Fuck that.

So yeah, Ben was glad when Mitaka shoved off a half hour before close (though a full hour after his shift was supposed to have ended . . . of course). The store was already nearly dead by then—Sunday nights were always slow—with Rey and a middle-aged guy in a hideous orange overcoat the only remaining signs of human life beyond Ben himself. Though after this day, he wasn’t feeling very human. He wished he had more to look forward to in going home than an empty fridge, a tiny kerosene heater, and a sofa to sleep on. 

At least Rey was still okay sharing the space with him. A weird bright spot, but a bright spot. She tried to make it fun, and usually it worked, even if they were both severely sleep-deprived.

He finished tidying up behind the counter, restocking cups and sleeves for the openers, adding an extra gallon of milk to the fridge, making sure the morning round of bakecase items were set up in the walk-in, expiry date labels affixed to the bottoms of the plates. He tried very hard not to breathe an audible sigh of relief when Orange Overcoat got up, very slowly—too fucking slowly—made his way to the trash can to dispose of his cup and the fifty napkins he’d for some reason decided he needed to eat _one goddamn brownie_ , paused to blow his nose loudly in the middle of the dining area, and finally, _finally_ , exited the establishment.

“For fuck’s sake,” Ben muttered under his breath, hastily making his way to the front door and locking it. 

Rey glanced up at him from her corner table, rubbing the heel of her hand over her eyes. She looked exhausted. She’d eaten one of the two scones he’d convinced her to take—one blueberry, the other cinnamon, even though he was almost positive she hated the cinnamon ones—and he suspected she’d already downed the entirety of the triple-shot mocha he’d made her. He considered it and the free scones the least he could do for her. She’d gotten him to work after their script readthrough and then spent the entirety of his shift sitting there, proofreading and applying revisions to the horrorshow that was said porno script. He owed her far, far more than some stale-ish pastries and oversweetened coffee, but right now he didn’t have much else to offer.

Ben peered out into the shopping center parking lot. It was mostly empty, and it just _looked_ cold. Last he checked, the forecasted evening snow showers had been delayed into an overnight affair, but he still didn’t want him and Rey getting stuck in it on the drive home. Even if it wasn’t a long trip, winter weather was a pain in the ass to get anywhere in. 

He approached her table and bumped his hip up against it. “Chin up, kid.”

“Hmm?” She had been staring at the screen, the cool glow of the screen making her look wan and somehow even sleepier. A little crinkle formed between her eyebrows, and she looked up at him as if she was only just then noticing his presence. “Oh. Hey. Sorry, I was just . . .” Her face scrunched seriously as she gestured at the screen.

“Lost in the fog of erotic arousal my writing is no doubt inspiring?” he ventured, voice dripping with self-deprecation.

She huffed a laugh into the back of her hand, trying to cover her mouth mid-yawn. “Yes, exactly. That. Very aroused. Definitely not just . . . completely knackered.” 

Ben chuckled. He was so accustomed to her voice, accent and all, that he never really registered anymore that she’d grown up in England until she broke out the occasional Britishism. It tended to happen more when she was tired (“ _knackered_ ”), and it was sort of charming.

“Well, if you still wanna wash your hair before we head out . . .” He shrugged and waved vaguely in the direction of the kitchen. “I’ve got everything cleaned up back there and ready to go.”

She nodded. “Right, yeah. I do. I’m a complete greaseball.” She idly massaged her fingers over her head, eyes traveling past him and settling on the kitchen doors. “Don’t suppose if I curl up really tiny I could take a bath in the sink, too, eh?”

 _That_ provoked a rapidfire series of very strange mental images, all of which he banished when they began to take a turn that centered around Rey performing an unsettling burlesque striptease in the kitchen involving his uniform apron and a plate of the chocolate cupcakes he liked to sneak at the end of a closing shift when no one was looking. 

Ben frowned and cleared his throat. “Ah, no, probably not. Come on back when you’re ready. No hurry.”

“Okay. Just gonna finish this up.”

While she took care of her own work, he returned to the area behind the counter, closed out, and shut off the lights in the dining area, grateful when the awful cafe playlist cut out as well. A few minutes later Rey met him by the counter and followed him back into the kitchen, where he dragged a desk chair over to the sink.

“Sit down,” he told her when he caught sight of her watching uncertainly.

She wandered over to the chair and peered into the sink, like she was expecting to find it full of dirty dishes rather than scrubbed pristinely clean for the night. “I was just going to lean over it and sort of—” She mimed holding the spray nozzle and hosing her head down with it, or possibly trying to swat a swarm of bees away.

Ben shook his head, distracted by his search for a soft dishtowel to drape over the sink edge—it was curved and smooth, but stainless steel was not very forgiving. 

“If you’d rather, that’s fine, but I thought you might . . .” 

Thought she might what? Want a fucking salon experience in the back of a coffee shop chain? Ben swallowed, suddenly unsure why he’d started setting it up this way. She’d brought her shampoo from home, and a towel to wrap her hair in afterward, but beyond that they hadn’t really discussed it. He realized that she’d been envisioning something different than he had. But it was simple: he wanted to do something nice for her.

“I thought I could return the favor. From the other night,” he said. She stared at him, her confusion evident in the way her mouth hung open a little. “With less toilet tank water involved.”

Rey’s eyebrows shot up, and her lips curved in a small smile of realization. “Oh!” She laughed quietly and nodded. “Oh.” Her eyes settled on the chair, and on him as he folded a few clean dish towels in half and draped them over the rim of the sink to form a nice thick pad for her neck. “Oh. Okay. You’re going to . . . wash my hair for me?”

He focused on setting the shampoo up by the side of the sink, a task that required no brain power under normal circumstance but seemed to demand his full attention just now. “Sure. If you want. I’ll even let you use some of this.” 

He held up an unassuming black bottle and wagged it in her face. It was his conditioner, the one she’d seemed so interested in the other night when she’d helped him out of his own hair-related debacle. 

“Coconut!” she cried with amused delight. “Ooh, with vanilla and argan oil. How luxurious. Aren’t you worried my hair’s going to look better than yours by the time this is all done?”

Given that he’d just spent the last seven hours wearing a hat in a greasy, humid kitchen, he strongly suspected it already did. He ran his hand over his head self-consciously.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he said. He turned the water on and began fiddling with the water pressure adjustment on the spray nozzle so that it wouldn’t be too harsh on her head. 

Rey nodded, looking pleased and a little bemused as she sat in the chair and leaned her head back over the rim of the sink. “Thanks, you. This is nice.”

“Sure.” He stood beside her and realized her hair was still tied back in a ponytail. “Oh, uh, can you get the . . . tie thingy out? I don’t want to pull your hair.”

She snorted and shook her head, reaching back to free her hair. She shuffled her hand through it a few times and then settled with her hands in her lap. “Shit. Sorry. I’m so sleepy, I forgot.”

“Well, feel free to take a nap. I’ll try not to take too long,” he said as he tested the water temperature on his hand, then held the nozzle to her hair, close to her scalp. “This feel all right?”

Her eyes were closed, and she already looked half blissed out, but she gave a shallow nod. “Mm hm. Nice and warm.”

“How’s your neck?”

“So comfy.”

“Good.”

Rey had said she felt like a greaseball, but her hair was so fine and soft he didn’t really notice whether her appraisal had been accurate or not. It just felt nice, with a funny little crease where her hair tie had pressed for hours, so he took a few moments to loosen some tangles, then started to wet her hair more thoroughly. He tried not to think too much about how this was a new level of pathetic for them. It was tempting to focus on the idea that in a few weeks they’d hopefully be on their way out of this mess; assuming the porno sold, which was something he’d never imagined himself thinking. He willed himself to relax and focus on his task. 

He set the nozzle aside to squeeze some of her shampoo into his hand, sparing a look at the bottle. VO5 Strawberries and Cream. As usual. The smell was incredibly familiar, because it was what she usually smelled like at breakfast. He was pretty sure she’d been using this the entire time he’d known her. Creature of habit; like him, he supposed. 

Gently, Ben began to massage it into her hair, starting near her hairline and working his way down to the ends. In the eerie quiet of the empty kitchen, the long, satisfied sigh she issued as he returned to her scalp seemed far too loud. Fuck, that was a pretty sound, and he’d been the one to draw it from her. He felt an unbidden creep of heat up his neck, down his arms and belly, and counted himself lucky it didn’t stray any lower. 

His hands froze for a moment and he stole a look at her face before forcing himself to continue. She was still just lying there, eyes closed, maybe more asleep than awake, who knew. It reminded him of how the other morning he’d woken up before she did and almost yelped when he found her face so close to his own. Sharing the couch was great for warmth but a little complicated in other ways. Her snoring was fine, but that time in particular, he’d had to very carefully roll to face away from her without waking her up; not just because of how her nose had practically been touching his, but because he didn’t want to have to explain that his half-erection was definitely just morning wood and nothing to do with her specifically.

But now, as he coaxed the shampoo in her hair to fragrant white suds, it was . . . really gratifying to see her looking so relaxed. She never got to relax. Not nearly enough anyway, in his opinion. She’d probably say the same about him. And they’d both be right. That was sort of their thing, he thought. Worrying about the other more than themselves. Reminding each other to take care. Telling the other when to cut their respective forms of bullshit. 

He was glad she hadn’t brushed him off tonight as trying to fuss over her. She did that sometimes, when he thought he was only trying to help. And probably, most of the time, she was right. Ben could be a bit of a meddler. But Rey deserved to be fussed over, now and then at least, and if this fucking week wasn’t a good reason for it, he didn’t know what was. He let his thumbs slide in a gentle arc from her temples down behind her ears, then gingerly tucked a stray piece of hair that had stuck to her cheekbone in the spray back up into the rest. 

When he began to let the pads of his fingertips circle over her scalp again, adding a little pressure from his nails, her body slackened slightly and her throat constricted with a deep swallow. Her eyelids were twitching, her mouth prettily parted just the tiniest bit, emphasizing the fullness of her lips. He forced himself to look away, grabbed the nozzle and began to rinse the shampoo out, squeezed her hair firmly, tugging just enough to get the soap out and ignoring the way she absently arched her neck and back just a little to follow.

“Just doing the conditioner. Sit tight.”

She didn’t respond, either lost in her own head or dozed off. Conditioner. Right. He smeared a generous dollop between his palms and applied it evenly over her now very-violently-strawberry-scented hair, taking care to apply it evenly through to the ends. He was contemplating how long to let it sit—usually he left it in for however long he needed to tend to the rest of his shower routine which could . . . vary—when a sharp sniffling sound pulled his attention back to Rey’s face.

Her eyelashes were clumped and wet, and he noticed the tracks of a few tears down her left cheek. Absently, he passed a hand soothingly over her head, then paused with his fingers buried in her hair, cradling the back of her skull. He wasn’t sure what to do. Why was she . . .

She drew a sharp gulp, her breath hitching, eyes still closed, like she didn’t even realize what she was doing. Ben’s stomach clenched and he swallowed a lump of panic, confused by her distress. Was she asleep? Was she having a nightmare? 

“Rey . . .” He nudged her head—okay, more like caressed it, but he wasn’t sure what else to do and his hand was already there—then moved away a little.

Her eyes flew open, and she blinked the tears out of them, but she still seemed completely ignorant.

“You’re crying.”

She looked puzzled, blinked a few times more, drew her hands up to her cheeks and dabbed with her fingers. When they came away wet, she seemed surprised, her eyes darting back and forth a few times. A faint blush bloomed beneath her drying tears, which she palmed away. Ben felt like a voyeur suddenly and averted his attention. 

“I’m fine,” she muttered, then drew another bracing breath. It was less shaky than the one that preceded it, but still not natural. “We’re going to be fine.” 

The next moment she’d wrangled her features into a wide but also very fake smile. Ordinarily, she had a wonderful smile, and it was nearly impossible for Ben not to smile back. But this . . . her eyes were too bright, still shiny with tears, her teeth showing more than they did when she smiled normally. He found he couldn’t return it, even as she met his eyes and searched his face.

“Is my hair done yet?”

He pressed his lips together and nodded. “Almost.” 

Well, at least he no longer had to debate over how long to wait before rinsing her conditioner out, whether waiting too long would result in her neck getting sore, whether doing it too soon would make her feel like he was rushing her off. Ben officially didn’t want Rey to have to sit here crying over . . . whatever. He wanted to ask, but he had some idea already, and he didn’t want to pry when she was clearly trying to hide that she was upset. Maybe he’d wait until tomorrow and see if there was a natural way to bring it up over breakfast.

They were both exhausted and so frayed at this point. After being forced to sit there for hours combing over his script, it had probably just hit her how inhumanly abominable it was. Hell, _he_ wanted to cry when he thought about it too much. It was best to let it be and try not to annoy her too much for the rest of the night.

Rey laid back again, her eyes open now, her gaze flat and distant as he rinsed the conditioner out and gave her the towel she had brought with her. While she wrapped her hair up and stretched, he gave the sink a quick spray down and cleaned out the trap with a paper towel—the last thing he needed was Mitaka noticing long, brown, human hairs there tomorrow morning when he opened. He wasn’t a moron; he probably already suspected Ben and Rey were doing _something_ here tonight. It was best not to leave any evidence.

When he turned to get ready to go, he caught Rey dabbing at her face with a free corner of her towel. Her cheeks were still slightly red, her eyes glassy.

Fuck it, he couldn’t just say nothing to her. If she wasn’t going to acknowledge whatever was wrong, it was the least he could do to try to assure her anyway.

“It’s going to be okay, you know,” he offered in an undertone. He grimaced as he pulled his jacket on. God, that had sounded so fucking cliche. She probably hadn’t even heard him, the way he’d spoken so quietly.

But she looked over her shoulder at him, and her expression was one of surprise. She nodded, smiling tightly. “I know.”

“Good.” He nodded, then repeated it for his own benefit, because goddammit, he needed some reassuring too, and if he needed to do it for the both of them tonight, fine. “Good.”

As they made their way out of the kitchen and through the cafe, bundled up for the cold, Rey with the damp towel folded under her arm, Ben with his computer bag slung across his chest, he dug into his pocket for his hat, started to put it on, then changed his mind.

“Here. Put this on.” He held it out to her. “Your hair’s still wet, and it’s fucking frigid out.”

She huffed a laugh and accepted it without argument. “Thanks,” she said, slipping the black knit cap on and tucking her dripping hair into it, then smirking up at him. “How’s it look?”

He stole a glance at her as they walked outside and turned to lock up behind him. “Old. Might be time for a new one soon.”

He’d had it for years, and it was his only winter hat, so it had been through a lot. He probably should have tossed it a while ago. But Rey had made it the night they’d spent almost twelve hours watching _Game of Thrones_ together for the first time. She’d gifted it to him the next morning during breakfast, a thank-you for canceling his date to be there for her when she’d needed it. So yeah, maybe it held sentimental value to him, and maybe, despite the fact that it had some holes in it and was ratty and perfectly unremarkable, he was probably going to have that hat until the thing unraveled on his head. 

“I’ll remember that. It’s been too long since I knitted anything,” she said lightly. She sounded considerably better than she had a few minutes ago. “Holidays are coming up, you know.”

“Yeah, I can’t forget.” They neared the car, and he tapped her arm with his elbow. “Want me to drive? You seem like you could use a break.”

“You just treated me to some ultimate relaxation time,” she said. “I can drive. _You_ can eat this delicious cinnamon scone—I only took the second one so you could have it.”

“That was for you.”

“And I am officially gifting it to you. Maybe you didn’t notice it, but your stomach was snarling in my ear the whole time we were at the sink together. Anyway, I know these are your favorite.”

Ben reluctantly accepted the scone and took a bite, dropping crumbs as he lumbered toward the passenger side of the car and waited for Rey to reach across and unlock the door. He _was_ starving, and one good turn deserved another, even if at this point he was pretty sure neither of them were keeping track anymore. Tomorrow they would be one day closer to being out of this hellscape of a situation. Until then, and maybe it was just the scone talking, he could at least say that if he had to endure it with one person, he was glad it was her.


End file.
